PC Upgrade: What do you think?

A

A70M3

Geek Trainee
Case; Newegg.com - AMS CF-2229BK Black Computer Case - OEM

ThermalTake TR2 430W PSU (Newegg.com - Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W Power Supply - Retail)
ASUS M2N-E Motherboard (Newegg.com - ASUS M2N-E ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.6GHz Socket AM2 Processor - Retail)
Corsair XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 SDRAM (Newegg.com - CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail)
eVGA Geforce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card (Newegg.com - eVGA Geforce 7950GT KO 512-P2-N635-AR Video Card - Retail)
WD 160GB 7200RPM HDD (Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM)
Samsung DVD Burner (Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R Burner, LightScribe Technology, IDE, Model SH-S182M/BEBN - OEM)

I haven't upgraded my computer in about 3 years, so I think it's time I do so. I don't really know what's what in the computer world, so any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Mainly, I'll be using this computer to play CSS and (hopefully) Oblivion on Ultra High settings. I don't want to overclock anything. Does anyone think that this case could have problems keeping cool with this hardware? Only one rear fan kind of worries me. Also, should I go for something less than the 5200? Total cost comes out to be a little over $1000, and I was shooting for somewhere around $900, but I really want to play Oblivion on Ultra High.

So, recommendations?
 
With a system like that i expect you will be able to deffenitly play oblivion and even better games on ultra high settings seen as i can almost maxx oblivion out and play it on my system.

There are a few things about your new system you should change, such as the CPU, AMD used to be the best for gaming but for now Intel really has AMD locked down with there new Core 2 Duo's, almost all of the Core 2 Duo's are better than AMD's cpu's.

Revisions:
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor - Retail

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

I reccommend you upp your budget abit as your going to need a better power supply i think, i would think a good power supply from antec, enermax, seasonic, hiper etc.. would od the job, 500W - 800W.
 
That power supply you've picked out is woefully inadequate for your needs. It's fine for AGP Socket 478 Pentium 4 and Socket A Athlons, but not for the current hardware. Newer systems have shifted to drawing off the 12V rail for the CPU and video card, where in the past they were on the 5V and 3.3V, respectively. That Thermaltake is meant for older systems, so it's not the wattage so much as how it's divided.

Any 600W or larger power supply from any of the following companies will do you right: Antec, Enermax, OCZ, FSP, Fortron, Hiper, Sparkle, Seasonic, Silverstone, XClio, PC Power & Cooling...A couple of examples: OCZ GameXtreme 600 and the Enermax 600W.
If you need to cut something elsewhere, drop the CPU to a slower X2 or even a single core. Don't skimp on the power supply.
 
one thing i can tell u is that DONT GET THAT MOBO. ASUS m2N-e sucks. ive had experience with it and its got so many issues.
have a read for urself at asus forums on that mobo.
U CANNOT overclock more than 20% or the OC just resets. most of all the memory voltage only goes to 1.95v when nowadays good memory takes aroun 2volts.

the heatpipe is the only good feature on it. i suggest you get a dfi infinity ultra2mll. the one i got. its great and im not just being bias here. i tried oc and set the fsb to 350 and multi to 8 and ran prime for 10mins (was just playin around) and the computer did boot to windows, most mobos max out at 290mhz fsb and dont even post wheter the porcessor can go to that speed or not
its roughly about the same cost so theres no reason not to get it. the only bad thing is that the chipset gets to 60-65oC but u can just replace the heatsink like i did and get 45oC
 
He doesent want to overclock though, so it doesent really matter if it is a crap overclocker.
 
Worst case scenario, he just goes with some value DDR2 instead of the Dominator. I don't think the Dominator's require much juice for stock speeds, especially when they won't be operating at full speed anyway. Of course, I don't know how much will be saved by going with DDR2-533.
 
At your current defined specs, you shouldnt have any problem at all with running CSS and Oblivion on ultra high, i own both games and I'm running an Intel dual core with 2GB RAM and a XFXGeForce7800 GT, recheck your settings and/or update your BIOS..btw..how can u say that you havent upgraded your rig in 3 years when you have a 7950GT which came out only a year and a half ago...another reason which may not allow you to run these games on ultra settings may be your PSU, seeing you have such a powerful graphics card, i think 480W may not be sufficient. i recommend you getting atleast a 600W or more PSU

Good luck,
Necromage
 
The 7950 cant of came out a year and a half ago since the 7800GTX was like really popular then.

so its even younger :P

A high qualit 600W PSU should do, 500W too.
 
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